The holidays can be especially hard if you are a long-distance grandparent. Since you can’t spend Christmas morning with your faraway grands, try some of these ideas to bridge the miles during traditional family gathering times (or anytime!)
- If your grandchild is just a baby, find an easy book that you can read to them during a video call. Then read it again next time you talk. Babies and toddlers find repetition comforting and will look forward to “Grandma’s Story.” When our granddaughter was obsessed with dogs, we read The Puppy Book dozens of times.
- Ask your Goers to FaceTime you when they are putting your grandchild to bed for nap or night and sing them your favorite hymn or lullaby (or Christmas carol). Record yourself doing this and send it to them as an audio file so they can listen again and again.
- Make a collage of family members’ photos, attach it to an email, and have your Goer print it out. Then, next time you video chat with your grandchild, go through the pictures and talk about all the relatives. Our granddaughter had a little photo album that her great grandma created, and she loved to look at all the faces and say the names.
- Employ a favorite toy. My husband’s favorite way to communicate with our granddaughter was with props. He would find a doll or stuffed animal and proceed to make it talk in appropriate baby or animal language during our video chats with her. This thrilled our little one, who would continue to ask for him to “talk them,” and it made her excited for our next call—especially if Papa was going to take part.
- If you can easily send packages to your Goer, collect flat items like Kool-Aid packets, stickers, cute calendar pictures, sticks of gum, and photos of family members and send inexpensive care packages addressed to your grandchild. Send cards on real and invented holidays.
- If mailing is not an option because of unreliable delivery services, send videos back and forth using a video chatting app like Marco Polo. If the grandkids are a little older, host a cooking lesson where they follow along in their own kitchen.
- Write to your grandchild in a journal on special days or just when you are missing them. When they are home, let them read these little love letters. Make sure to keep the journal, though, so you can continue to do this for them. What a treasure this will be to them if you continue to do it as they grow.
- Memorize a Scripture verse together during your regular chats. You pick the verse one month, he/she picks it the next. Keep each other accountable and talk about why God’s Word is important. Before my granddaughter was old enough to choose a verse herself, I taught her, “A glad heart makes a happy face” (Proverbs 15:13 NLT) And sometimes, even if she couldn’t remember the words, she would point to her rosy cheeks with her little fingers and smile (happy face) because that’s how we said the verse. This made my heart very glad.
- Pray for them specifically by name on one day of the month and ask God to give them a heart that truly loves Him. I pray most days for my granddaughter, Joelle, but one day every month (each family member gets a regular day on my calendar), I pray an extended prayer for her and tell God how I long to play an influential role in her life.
Parents of Goers 